Sunday, June 8, 2008

All four Emerald Thuja have been planted (they're all of a foot tall!) The tulip tree is also here, and that went in at the same time. I'm still waiting for the lilac, but they're supposed to be off backorder shortly.

Of course, the temperature just reached 90° F. Fortunately, these are so small and have such large root masses that keeping them damp is easy.

The builder decided to regrade the swale behind the house late last week. Right now, 11' x 110' of the property is torn up. Since they also removed Myrtle's wire, they'll be replacing that. I trust it's in the correct place (I called them, so it should be). Otherwise I fully intend to complain to the township.

I'll reseed that in fall once the weather breaks. It's right at the back line of the house, so although it looks awful at least it isn't in the middle of anything important.

They decided to seed the front easement as well in the small holes where the lawn is filling in. I think they used contractor seed (I can see rye in it), so I'll make sure that fails. Fortunately, during the summer that's extremely easy.

I fed the lawn this weekend with 40 lbs of soybean meal (the bag is fifty, but I had the setting a bit low. It was so hot I didn't want to go over it a second time). That works out to about 0.4 lbs N, 0.06 P, 0.11 K, and around 5 lbs of organics per thousand square feet.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

The Robomower 850 (named Myrtle) got here on Friday and it wasn't that expensive to repair. She's now done all three zones twice.

It's been a while since I blogged, but I've been busy. Six bags of Milorganite went down in May, plus setting up all the gardens (around 800 annuals), and keeping everything weeded.

I finally decided to close out the back line a little better, so I ordered 4 Emerald Thuja for there. That should compliment the 2 butterfly bushes and 3 lilacs very nicely, and they don't invade too badly.

The crepe myrtle (named Suzette...the name Myrtle already being taken by the mower) isn't doing well. That went into a pot, and I ordered a tulip cedar (actually, that's a magnolia) for that spot. Since they're native to Pennsylvania, that should do fine.

About Me

I have an elite bluegrass lawn, including Midnight II, Moonlight, Bedazzled, Prosperity, Brilliant, Moonbeam, and Blueberry cultivars. I'm an organic gardener as well.
I receive a lot of questions at work and from friends and family regarding lawn care, so I'll answer many of them here and send out the link.